7 Ways to grow Instagram Followers in 2019

With well over 1 billion monthly users, incredibly smart algorithms and a lot of resourceful brands on the social platform, it’s a competitive place if you want to increase Instagram followers. It’s a lot harder to expand your reach today on the social site than it was last year. So, if you want to stand out and grow your brand on Instagram, you’re going to need to work smarter. Following are 7 “smart” ways to reach your target market and grow your followers in 2019.

Create a Branded Profile

In order to get more Instagram followers this year, you’ll need to work on your profile. Why? Because Instagram profiles are now as important as the homepages, so it needs to look on point. When somebody visits your Instagram profile, they’ll decide within seconds if your business is worth following. Just how do they make their decision? By swiftly scrolling through your feed, clicking on your Stories Highlights or checking out your bio. Therefore, you want your profile to be perfect.

Use Instagram Stories to Showcase Your Brand

The Stories Highlights you have on your Instagram profile provide you with an opportunity to draw new followers with your high-quality content, and by giving them a sense of what your company is all about. Uncertain about what to post on your Stories Highlights? They are very similar to landing pages so you have a lot of options. For example, if your business sells products, you could create separate highlights for each product, or sort them by group, then creating additional highlights for things like shipping information or FAQs.

Use Instagram Stories Templates

If you post on Instagram Stories (if you don’t, you should start) consider using Stories templates. These innovative templates can make your stories a lot more consistent looking and will compliment your feed posts. There are several apps you can use that make it fairly easy to create templates (like Canva), or if you’re familiar with Photoshop you can use it as well.

Use Location Tags and Hashtags in Your Instagram Stories

These awesome Instagram features make it possible for you to add location stickers and hashtags that are clickable to stories. A lot of consumers use Instagram to look for local businesses, similar to how they use Yelp. Although there aren’t any conclusive statistics available to indicate the number of searches performed on Instagram, there are numerous success stories regarding businesses being discovered by Instagram users that led to sales.

Selfies aren’t Just for Personal Instagram Accounts

People want to follow social media accounts that they can relate to and it’s no different with Instagram, regardless of whether it’s influencers, a brand, or somebody they went to school with. That’s why it’s imperative that you make your Instagram account as relatable and personable as possible. Selfies are a fun and effective way to show off how relatable your brand is and get you more Instagram followers.

Create Instagram Ads

Presenting the right kind of ads on Instagram provide an opportunity to generate real followers, even in the site’s very competitive marketplace. There several types of Instagram ads you’ll be able to run for your account, including videos, feed-style images and Instagram Stories ads that will show up as your audience taps through the stories. What’s important when it comes to the success of your ads is that you target the right audience, in the most appropriate way.

Promote Your Content on Other Marketing Platforms

In order to get more Instagram followers, you’ll also want to expand your marketing efforts outside of the app. Take advantage of other marketing channels, including your website, other social networks like Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin, print and email marketing, directing your target audience to your Instagram page.

Getting more Instagram followers comes down to a combination of targeting the right audience, consistently adding creative content, and promoting your company in the right way. Try out the tips listed here this year and see how much your account can grow in 2019.